Thursday, March 3, 2016

hello again.

Things are changing for me. I'm in a kind of personal transition, a remaking of myself, a shift of identity and approach. I feel it inside my bones, a basal sliding. And it's most evident right now in my parenting. I'm becoming a different parent.

I haven't written here in a long time. I haven't wanted to. I started the blog when my babies were tiny, to help me through the trials of having tiny babies, and two of them so close together. Around the time Clark turned five I realized I didn't need this blog anymore in the same way. I no longer had babies. My work was no longer the universal work of caring for these tiny people, but was now the complicated work of relationship. And I didn't want to write about that. It felt too personal.

But now... now I want to write again. Now I'm seeing them through new eyes. It's a change in me, the frame through which I look, and I need to process it again.

I thought about starting a new blog--that perhaps this one is finished, or that it is too awkward for me to come back here after so much time away; but here is where I write about these children, after all.

They are different now--they are full people for sure. Clark will be eight on Tuesday, four days from now. Today when I picked him up from school I told him to put on his hat and gloves because the dog and I had walked, and he said, "Awwww! I don't want to walk-- I'm tired." And then he happily hopped from snow pile to snow pile all the way home. The snow here has warmed and softened, and then frozen again, so is a kind of snow cement, the kind you can mostly walk on top of without breaking through, or can slide down the mountain side of the plow pile, a miniature glacier at the end of each driveway. Clark's trick was to slide down on his feet, to land right side up. At one point, watching his evident joy at simply being outside, I said, "It's too bad we walked. You're not having any fun." And he grinned at me.

I want to hug them more. I want to hear them talk. Before, I was emotionally exhausted, was overwhelmed, had trouble giving them my energy. Now I want to be with them. Tremors underfoot.

Frances is nine. She wants all the grown up things--the make up and the clothes and the music, and I've surprised myself that I haven't wanted to resist her more. I loved that little girl she was, but I'm fine with the change. She's not allowed to wear makeup out of the house, but she often wears it inside, and yesterday we went shopping for bras--well, bralettes, little thin sports bra type things with no padding--even though she is shaped the same as she was at five, just taller. She says they keep her warmer, here in the snow belt. Perhaps.

This age is better for me. I loved the little ones, but they pushed my every button, and without meaning to. Somehow the preschool age in particular triggered things in me--I think the tortured child inside me is probably that age. This age doesn't push my buttons the same way. Even the eye rolls, the defiance--I can handle that so much better. Maybe this is why I don't mind the make up and bras-- because the younger ages weren't easy for me to begin with. Maybe I'm eager to let it go.

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About Me

mama. wife. daughter. painter. writer. swing dancer. quaker. jewelry maker. teacher. gardener. migraine sufferer. baker. friend. knitter. hiker. yoga lover.
Stay at home mom with two small kiddos and a wonderful husband in upstate NY. This blog is about the struggles of being a parent--about the joys too, but mostly the struggles, what they mean, how they define us or don't, how we wade our way through them day by day. To read more about me, see About This Blog at the top of this page.